Fizz! Buzz! ‘Ave a banana!

orc barbarian miku!!!!!

Anything by NK Jemisin. She is the best speculative fiction writer of her generation and probably the best speculative fiction writer alive. She is easily one of the best writers working right now, across all genres. That’s not hyperbole. She deserves all the hype.

Anything by Octavia Butler. She needs no introduction. Her short fiction is incredible; “Bloodchild” is one of the pieces that inspired me to write.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. Excellent. Just read it.

The Radiant Emperor duology by Shelley P. Chan. It broke my heart and it'll break yours.

Babel by RF Kuang. You’ve probably already heard of this book because Harper Voyager marketed the shit out of it and was right to do so. It’s very, very good. Kuang writes a compulsively readable story, that’s for sure.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo.

So Long Been Dreaming: Post-Colonial Science Fiction and Fantasy (anthology) edited by Nalo Hopkinson.

Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (anthology) edited by Nalo Hopkinson.

Severely underhyped books of assorted speculative genres:

The Blood Trials by NE Davenport. Given the current chokehold romantasy has on the public it’s insane to me that this book hasn’t sold a billion copies.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez. It’ll change you.

The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera.

The Lesson by Caldwell Turnbull.

Read widely. Read diversely. People of the Caucasian persuasion need to stop getting pissy when the story doesn’t immediately center them and they don’t automatically relate to everything the character says and does and is. Just let yourself get swept in the story—even if it touches on (gasp!) racism—and maybe, just maybe, it’ll reveal something to you.

Or maybe not! Marginalized sff authors do not have to and should not have to educate their readers. But if I see one more white person complain about how Black characters are fundamentally annoying because they complain too much I’m going to fling myself into the sun

I found the book on Audible, and it looks like it's pretty short (about 3 hours to listen to); so it shouldn't take a whole long time to read, either. Audible is currently listing it as free to members, so if you've got a membership, maybe go pick it up?

Here's the summary they provide:

In an alternate New Orleans caught in the tangle of the American Civil War, the wall-scaling girl named Creeper yearns to escape the streets for the air - in particular, by earning a spot onboard the airship Midnight Robber. Creeper plans to earn Captain Ann-Marie's trust with information she discovers about a Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls "The Black God's Drums". But Creeper also has a secret herself: Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, speaks inside her head and may have her own ulterior motivations. Soon, Creeper, Oya, and the crew of the Midnight Robber are pulled into a perilous mission aimed to stop the Black God's Drums from being unleashed and wiping out the entirety of New Orleans.

In fact, the creature you'll find suddenly walking beside you and acting as if they've always been there is almost certainly a juvenile, as the adults lose the ability when they reach reproductive age.

Recent studies suggest the forest mimic is less like a preying mantis (mimicry as a hunting strategy) and more like a cuckoo (mimicry as a protective strategy for their young). Adult forest mimics will leave their offspring near a group of hikers while they forage during the day, and retrieve them near trailheads in the evening. Groups of hikers provide safety from predators and allow the parents of the species the freedom to forage more widely.

For this reason, the traditional advice to never let a mimic into your vehicle is still very important, as this would separate the young mimic from its mother. If a juvenile forest mimic does follow your group to the parking lot, you can keep it entertained with trail snacks, dad jokes, and simple goofs. The mother will usually collect them shortly before sunset.

But not just any banana bread.

I dreamed that I made the banana bread like normal. But then!

Then I thinned some peanut butter with milk (????) and melted some chocolate and thinned that with milk, too, and then put them into separate baggies, and put those baggies into a third baggie so their corners were all aligned. I cut the overlapping corner to make a squeezy bag like for frosting where they would both come out together but not mixed, and then I dipped the tip of it into the banana bread batter and swirled peanut butter and chocolate into it.

THEN I baked it.

The peanut butter looks exactly like it did in my dream, same consistency as well, so that's. Something.

The chocolate was a little trickier. I would have preferred to thin it with something else, like butter or oil, or even cream, but in the dream it was milk so that is what I used. Instead of adding milk to the chocolate, I heated some milk on a double boiler bowl on low heat and added chocolate slowly. It worked fine. It's not "melted chocolate" consistency, it was more like a ganache, which I suppose it is, technically. It will be extremely interesting to find out what consistency that bakes to in banana bread.

My attempt at making the double-bagged frosting bag went. poorly.

But I suspect if I were going to do it again I would put them in together rather than trying to do one then the other and I would not cut the sides. Or maybe do them one at a time into the bread, more likely. It did NOT go as smoothly as in my dream, I think I would need a metal tip with like... a straw at the end, very thin point at least, to swirl like I did in my dream. Not unachievable in terms of result but not a particularly good method, dream me.

The bread itself is promising

So, it held together fine, which I was worried about. The peanut butter lines were, I think, too thick, same with some of the chocolate. It wasn't goopy or anything, but it was overwhelming. Using a thinner tip to apply either or both would definitely help.

I had worried I burned the chocolate a little because I left the burner when I went to answer the door and got caught up for a couple minutes trying to politely get some Jehovah's witnesses to leave so my chocolate didn't burn. I don't have a great sense of smell, so I couldn't tell when I got back if it burned, but tasting it after, it definitely did. Unfortunate.

The peanut butter was also weird. Not bad, but I'm definitely not used to it being in my banana bread. The area where the strip was thinner were delicious though, so I think if you could just control the amount better it would work out. OR maybe as a drizzle on top, or a topping on a slice of normal bread.

I think next time, I would thin the (dark) chocolate with butter, apply both chocolate and peanut butter with a thinner tip, and include the wheat germ. I missed it.

besties... this is original art... by interacting with the post at all, youre going here

It's not that I didn't want to. But these days, putting any art online feels like casting very personal pearls before ravenous robot swine.

But then I saw that post about the cosplayer who shared her armour technique, in defiance of the urge to keep it secret, and I thought, stuff all this. AI may steal our work, but the saddest thing would be if AI stopped us from sharing it at all.

Oak, Monstera and Thistle Dragons